Heartless
by celeryy
Summary: There's more than one way to be unfeeling. If he can't have the one...  Warning: angst/self-mutilation


**A/N **

**Uh...I'm not quite sure why this happened...This is another oneshot I started months ago because of a crazy idea I had, and yesterday I _finally_ wrote the second half. R&R!  
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**Oh yeah - fair warning: Very very dark. Some icky gore, if you're sensitive to that stuff.  
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**Disclaimer: Dr. Horrible belongs to Whedons..._...Whedons..._**

**Premise: There is more than one way to be unfeeling. If he can't have one...  
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/

"And I won't feel..."

* * *

><p><em>Don't remember...don't even think...don't...<em>

_I swore to be unfeeling._

And he had tried. Enough, even, to successfully fool the rest of the world. Yes, he had certainly done his best.

A dark chuckle - no one would dare to doubt _that_.

But that wasn't enough. It wasn't that simple.

Of course it wasn't.

He was still haunted. _She_ was always there, skirting his dreams, floating just beyond the periphery of his conscious mind. Creeping towards him from the darkest shadows, from the past life he'd tried so hard to forget forever.

_I have to make it stop..._

How, though?

And one night, from the twisted web of his thoughts, a hope - an _idea_ - had presented itself with sudden clarity.

He began to work. Feverishly, night and day, he dedicated himself secretly to the task.

_If this is what it takes..._

He was willing - more than willing. It was a small price to pay.

The concoction was almost ready, but until it was, all he could do was wait.

(Meanwhile, he was left only to dream.)

Wait, and dream.

_Make it stop...please..._

_/  
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Moist was backing away, staring at him in horror. The cold sweat on his forehead seemed even more abundant than usual.

"D-Doc...you..." he swallowed. "Your hand..."

Billy - no: _Dr. Horrible_ - glanced down to where his henchman's shaking finger was pointing. Slowly, very slowly, he raised his hand to his face in order to more closely examine the phenomenon. A thin stream of blood trailed down the side and dripped onto his bleached white sleeve, staining it. The corner of his mouth twitched mildly in annoyance.

The jagged razor had impaled itself clean through his palm. He rotated his wrist and saw the tip of the blade protruding below the gap between his second and third knuckle. His expression remained entirely neutral as he reached up with his other hand and, ignoring Moist's conspicuous shudder, pulled the whole shard out in one smooth gesture.

Dr. Horrible flexed his bloodstained fingers experimentally.

Without speaking, he ran a fingertip delicately along the edge of the broken razor. His eyes narrowed and his head tilted to the side ever so slightly, in what might have been pure, childlike curiosity. Then, with a sort of inquisitive detachment, he pressed the sharp blade straight into the pad of his index finger, immediately drawing blood and an audible gasp from the other side of the room.

The disturbingly impassive expression on the Doctor's face didn't change, but in that moment a glint appeared in his eyes, like a spark, suggesting new and ominous depths hidden behind them.

"That's interesting..."

/

It was strange. He had to be more careful now. Marks appeared mysteriously on his body. He had to check for them, or else he wouldn't notice until much later.

He really should be more careful.

But he didn't care. Why should he? - it hadn't worked. He was still haunted...

So instead, he was reckless.

It was just small things at first, out of carelessness - a bloodied knuckle or bruised knee. A wayward kick yielded a broken toe. He walked on it anyways; that one didn't heal.

One day, he burned through the skin of his right arm with Hydrochloric Acid.

People started to notice. It scared his victims - he could see the horrified wonder on their faces.

This amused him.

_Good._

It only added to his increasingly infamous reputation.

/

But still, despite all his efforts - despite weeks of obsessive work...the crippling, sickening despair wouldn't go away. He still woke up screaming.

He had tried everything -

everything short of...

of...

_Ah..._

In that moment, he knew. He knew what to do, and it was such a wonderful relief, like a beam of warm sunlight.

Doctor Horrible smiled.

/

Just like old times, he decided to once again don the white lab coat. A bit of theatrical flair, perhaps, though only for his own benefit - there was to be no audience.

He would need a mirror. The one he found was old-fashioned, full-length, with a stand. It had a lovely gilded frame.

He placed it across from him in the lab and stood for a moment, staring at his reflection.

There was something about the blue eyes gazing back that made him...uneasy. His stomach lurched uncomfortably as it dawned on him:

he was looking at Billy.

No - Billy was looking at _him_.

He blinked, and reached a hand up to pull down the heavy welding goggles that could hide him from himself.

_There. That's better._

He turned towards at the cold metal instruments he'd set out, which winked knowingly at him under the harsh fluorescent light.

Then he had a better idea.

It all happened very quickly. He picked up an old pipe from some forgotten experiment and strode back towards the mirror. With a sudden, berserk fury, his arm whipped through the air, and with a deafening crash, the glass shattered into a thousand pieces. A few of them probably cut him - not that he could feel it.

Enough of the pane still hung in the frame that he could make out the fragmented image of his face and shoulders. Dr. Horrible tossed the pipe onto the floor and lifted his right hand to delicately prize out an especially lethal-looking shard. He grasped it in his fist, not caring that it was slicing at insides of his fingers.

There was a sort of poetic beauty to it, he mused, as he looked at his reflection multiplied in the broken mirror and in the knife-like fragment digging into his palm.

For just a moment, everything was peaceful.

Then, he lifted the shard into the air with a theatrical flourish (always a sucker for melodramatic gestures), and the ragged edge glinted joyfully...before plunging straight into his chest.

The blood gushed out. It was warm and it flowed down his wrists and over the white lab coat, but he couldn't tell - couldn't even tell - until he'd looked into the mirror and saw the red spilling out, and looked down to watch it pooling at his feet.

He was breathing hard - maybe from adrenaline, or maybe he'd punctured a lung. Either way he knew he had to do it quickly. He pulled the shard sideways, sawing, hacking at his own body, cutting through flesh and ribs in an inhuman frenzy - across, and down, and across again, and then he dropped the tool and with his bare hands pried open the magic trapdoor on the left side of his chest.

_This - this is the problem._

He reached in with one hand and with a ferocious yank pulled out the whole meddlesome organ. He stared at it, and even as he fell to his knees, he smiled.

"..._not a thing..."_

_/_

**Let me know if you dig! (or if you don't - I'd like to know, either way!)**_  
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